The other Man by Donald J. West

The American Group Psychotherapy Association began in 1942 as an elite, strictly Freudian organization. Its dramatic growth in the 1960s and 1970s was accompanied by much theoretical disagreement and professional “chauvinism.” During the past decade, however, the ideological controversy has yielded to pluralism* in theory and eclecticism in practice.     

From Liverpool to Freetown: West African Witchcraft,Conspiracy and the Occult

In this ethnography I examine the key features of occult discourses among middle-class Sierra Leoneans living in Britain, based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Merseyside and Cheshire between 2001-2002. It is evident that the subjects of this study are quick to engage with the conspiracy-theorising besetting Euro-American popular culture in conveying their anxieties about the civil war, poverty and corruption that have ravaged Sierra Leone, coupled to the institutionalised racism and socio-economic problems that beset the black community in Liverpool. This despair has translated into a general trepidation about West African witchcraft that has become a global metaphor for the malcontents of modernity. In recent years these worries have been added to, fuelled by the heavy responsibility individuals experience to provide financial support and moral guidance to those relatives who have been forced to leave Sierra Leone during the years of civil strife. They are secretly mistrusted by the middle-class Sierra Leoneans living in Liverpool, who worry that their less-well-off relatives malign their good intentions through their accusations of witchcraft.     

The cosmology of economy: West African witchcraft,finance and the futures market

In this article, the relationship between cosmology and financial transactions via the sacred and deeply secret discourses of West African traditional priests in Europe is explored, who believe that they can spiritually manipulate the monetary pricing of stocks and shares. Of particular interest is how West African witchcraft discourses, while still embedded in kinship relationships, become symbolically caught up in the economy and in the volatile movement of industrial commodity indexes. In analysing the financial imaginary and constant reconfiguration of the marketplace by different networks of stakeholders, Ghanaian fetish priests allow for a fiscal elasticity and material distorting of monetary flows such that the incoherence and uncertainty of global financial practices and the fictious pricing and purchase of unstable commodities are shaped and magnified through a thick Akan cosmology.     

Migration Factors in West African Immigrant Parents’ Perceptions of Their Children's Neighborhood Safety

Immigrants make up large proportions of many low‐income neighborhoods, but have been largely ignored in the neighborhood safety literature. We examined perceived safety's association with migration using a six‐item, child‐specific measure of parents’ perceptions of school‐aged (5–12 years of age) children's safety in a sample of 93 West African immigrant parents in New York City. Aims of the study were (a) to identify pre‐migration correlates (e.g., trauma in home countries), (b) to identify migration‐related correlates (e.g., immigration status, time spent separated from children during migration), and (c) to identify pre‐migration and migration correlates that accounted for variance after controlling for non‐migration‐related correlates (e.g., neighborhood crime, parents’ psychological distress). In a linear regression model, children's safety was associated with borough of residence, greater English ability, less emotional distress, less parenting difficulty, and a history of child separation. Parents’ and children's gender, parents’ immigration status, and the number of contacts in the U.S. pre‐migration and pre‐migration trauma were not associated with children's safety. That child separation was positively associated with safety perceptions suggests that the processes that facilitate parent–child separation might be reconceptualized as strengths for transnational families. Integrating migration‐related factors into the discussion of neighborhood safety for immigrant populations allows for more nuanced views of immigrant families’ well‐being in host countries.     

Beyond the West: Religiosity and the Sense of Mastery in Modern Taiwan

This study examines the association between religiosity and personal mastery in the Chinese context, testing two theses: relinquished control and personal empowerment. Using data from a nationally representative sample of 1,881 Taiwanese adults, I find that: (a) beliefs in karma and one supreme God and prayer are negatively associated with the sense of mastery and (b) the estimated net effect of some devotional activities, such as meditation, appear to be robust, statistically significant, and positive. Implications of this study are discussed.     

经济全球化与东西方宗教

本文认为,由于科技的高度发展,信息网络技术的普及,经济全球化已成为不可逆转的发展趋势;而经济全球化必然带来东西方宗教的种种变化。作者从传统宗教的复兴、民族宗教的冲突、宗教与政治的结缘。宗教的普世化与本色化、新兴宗教的异军突起及东西方宗教的交流与融合等６个方面分析了当前东西方宗教的这种发展趋势。